Running From Ourselves
by perch and creep
Summary: This is a ficlet in Jack's POV, thinking about Riddick and her own life. Contains major spoilers for Chronicles of Riddick.


Title: Running From Ourselves  
  
Fandom: Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick  
  
Spoilers: Yes, if you haven't seen Chronicles of Riddick it spoils stuff.  
  
POV: Jack-Kyra  
  
Word Count: 870  
  
Rating: PG for language  
  
Disclaimer: I don't anything.  
  
Notes: I was sitting here doing nothing when this came to me. unanon and I are "gifting" each other with drabbles/ficlets for our birthday years. 28 for her from me and 24 for me from her. This is technically number 3, but I lost my first two entries when I moved so I guess I'm starting over.

Running From Ourselves  
  
Twelve isn't too old to fall in love.   
  
I didn't know much, but I knew I wanted a pair of eyes like yours; I wanted your skills, your life. I wanted to be you. More I wanted you.   
  
Twelve isn't too young to still believe in someone other than you.   
  
Betrayed. Torn in two. That's how it felt when I realized you were gone, like you leaving was going to save me. Like you leaving would make me safe. Sometimes you can be so stupid, though at the time I was still so stuck on you, on being you, that I just thought, "faster Jack, find him, this is all a mistake."  
  
Twelve isn't too young to die.   
  
But I didn't die, that's just it. Instead I was held, used, defiled and how I blamed you, it is all your fault, your fault that I was here, that I was hurting, that I was learning the way you learned, though at the time, I thought I was such a fuck up that I couldn't do it right, that I was better off curling off into myself and dying. But I don't die; I just reinvent myself and go on, hating you with a passion.  
  
Twelve isn't too old to think you've seen it all.  
  
Or thirteen, or fourteen, or fifteen, or sixteen.  
  
But seventeen?  
  
Seventeen, is Crematoria, seventeen, is razorblade kisses, seventeen is seeing you again, having you as close as a kiss, having you closer to me, realizing me for what and who I am, and then calling me Jack.  
  
That same old name.  
  
That forgotten twelve-year-old, old enough to bleed, but not old enough to keep you.   
  
Then it becomes so easy to split your face open with my razorblade tongue, to let you know who I am now.  
  
Kyra. I'm Kyra and I hate you, but I still need you, I still call your name when I'm in trouble, like I always did when you were around, like I did when you were gone and I was slaved out to mercenaries.  
  
I never thought how it must tear you up inside to think of me being a mercenary, me being what you hate and run from until you said the word, until you said the word like a curse.  
  
I almost went back to Jack over that.  
  
But I didn't. I can change one way, I can change towards hating you, but going back, being Jack, loving you....  
  
Only a fool wouldn't be in awe of what you can do, only a fool would love you.   
  
I'm a fool twice over.   
  
Seventeen isn't too old to believe you died and leave you.  
  
Seventeen isn't too young to give over to a race of undead, a life of immortality, if I can only be the best that I am.  
  
Why do I always fuck up with you?  
  
You leave me and I chase you and there I was in hell.  
  
You lie there in the hot, hot of hell and I abandon you; I ignore my chance to fly off on my own in that ship. To take the freedom you came to offer me, instead I enslaved myself again. Is that my problem Riddick? Do I just want to be a slave to what I think I want?  
  
Do I think you're a slave to your own soul?   
  
Fuck what does it matter.  
  
Fast forward.  
  
It hurt Riddick. It fucking hurt like hell. They gave me pain, and then they gave me pain beyond pain. They gave me everything, and I still called out your name, I sobbed your name, I repeated it like a prayer, I cried until I ran out of tears, all of them for you. All of them self pity for me, thinking I lost you again, thinking I'd rather conform and be part of the new bad, rather than be on my own.  
  
Didn't you realize I wasn't meant to be on my own?   
  
Didn't you realize I hate being alone?  
  
But there you were still alive. There you were asking me if I was with you? I wasn't, but I was.   
  
That's what you'll always believe. That I was playing possum, that I was letting you find the anger inside you, that I was letting them take me away from you. Poor foolish us. You had to believe I was gone to tap into the loss of me. Never once in five years of running did you think you'd lost me. You would have blissfully gone on living your life, thinking in that simple way of yours, "she'll be having a real life now."  
  
Yeah, a real fucking life.  
  
I idolized you!   
  
I'd die for you.  
  
I'm dying right now, and yeah Riddick I was with you, I was always with you. I was never good enough for a kiss. I was never good enough for you to say just once, "I like Jack better." I was never good enough for you to rebel against your need for isolation. I was just never good enough to be you.   
  
Riddick, I would have been your Jack again.   
  
I am your Kyra.   
  
Seventeen isn't too young to die, is it? 


End file.
